What if you could do more with G Suite® identities? What if your users could also use their G Suite credentials to log in to their system and to gain access to the WiFi? With more than 3 million paying businesses, G Suite has proven to be a strong competitor in the productivity application market. A common question we hear is whether G Suite identities can be used beyond Google Apps and services. The short answer is yes, but it takes integrating with a third party identity management platform to make that happen.

First, let’s take a look at what Google is doing in the identity management market.

Identity Management in the Eyes of Google

Google recently expanded the concept of G Suite identities to cut across a wider range of Google services. They have also changed the name to Google Cloud Identity. A Google Cloud Identity can be your G Suite identity, your identity for Google Cloud Platform, AdWords, and many more Google Apps. While this is a great step, it’s not what IT admins had in mind when it comes to doing more with G Suite identities.

IT organizations that have centralized their environment around G Suite are often cloud forward, looking to eliminate more of their on-prem infrastructure, and potentially even replace their Microsoft® solutions. G Suite is a great alternative to Office 365TM and Microsoft Exchange. However, can it replace the on-prem, Microsoft directory service Active Directory® (AD)?

Google IDaaS is not an AD Replacement

With G Suite Directory and Google Cloud Identity services, replacing AD on-prem isn’t really a goal. Google’s goal is to be a user management system for Google services and also to be an authentication source for a few, select web applications. In this context, you should think of Google IDaaS as a web app centric approach to identity management. The challenge with this is that most IT organizations also need to manage and authenticate their on-prem resources such as Windows, Mac, and Linux systems, cloud servers hosted at AWS, legacy applications, Samba file servers and NAS appliances, WiFi, and much more. G Suite identities don’t natively connect to those resources. This is where a third party identity management platform comes in to close the gap.

Extend G Suite Identities with our Cloud-based Directory Service

Called JumpCloud Directory-as-a-Service®, this cloud-based directory service is extending G Suite identities to the IT resources users need access to. This tightly integrated approach with G Suite means that organizations can completely shift to the cloud and eliminate their on-prem, legacy Active Directory instances.

How JumpCloud’s G Suite Integration Works

An OAuth based API integration makes it possible to import existing G Suite users into JumpCloud, and extend G Suite identities to systems, applications, file storage, and networks. Additionally, when you activate G Suite Sync, JumpCloud becomes the source of truth and point of control for provisioning, deprovisioning and managing your G Suite users. This activation also synchronizes user accounts and profile data in G Suite, allowing any password changes made in JumpCloud to proliferate to G Suite and all other resources tied to that user identity. Learn more about G Suite user import, provisioning and sync from this Knowledge Base article.

By connecting G Suite with JumpCloud, users gain one set of credentials that provides them with easy access to their system (Mac, Windows or Linux), on-prem and web-based applications, physical and virtual file storage, and wired and wireless networks. All the while, IT leverages a more secure IT environment in the cloud.

Learn More about Extending G Suite

If you’re interested in how customers are using JumpCloud’s G Suite integration, consider reading how Eusoh is using G Suite while maintaining a completely cloud-based IT environment. You’re also highly encouraged to view this G Suite integration Whiteboard video to learn more about the architecture behind G Suite user provisioning and sync.

If you have any questions about extending your G Suite identities, drop us a note. We’re more than happy to answer any of your questions. You can also start testing JumpCloud’s G Suite integration by signing up for a free account. You will have full access to all of our features, and your first ten users are free forever.

Natalie is a writer for JumpCloud, an Identity and Access Management solution designed for the cloud era. Natalie graduated with a degree in professional and technical writing, and she loves learning about cloud infrastructure, identity security, and IT protocols.

Various trademarks held by their respective owners. JumpCloud Directory-as-a-Service patents include No. 9,641,530 and No. 10,057,266.

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